The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Pests can cause extensive damage to agricultural crops. Pesticides are available to control some pest infestations. But in other infestations, pests may be resistant to pesticides. For example, soybean cyst nematodes can infiltrate and infest in soybean crops. And once soybean cyst nematode cysts are present in the soil of the crops, they are persistent and often difficult, if not impossible, to remove (e.g., with pesticides).
One approach to curb the damage caused by persistent pests is to create varieties of plants that are more resistant to the pests than other varieties. However, breeding for these enhanced plant varieties typically requires analysis of large numbers of plant and soil samples in order to determine which varieties have developed resistant properties. A current method for analyzing plants (e.g., soybean plants) includes manually counting pests (e.g., soybean cyst nematode cysts) from each sample plant. But as can be appreciated, manual counting of pests for a large number of sample plants can be extremely slow, cumbersome, and resource intensive. Moreover, accuracy of analysis may be a concern. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an automated system for such analysis.